The hybrid media-finance company wants to monetize investigative journalism in the public interest. Is it a visionary game changer or a cynical ploy?
Five days before the launch of Hunterbrook Media, one of its founders, Sam Koppelman, sat outside an East Village coffee shop and played me a voice mail. “We fucking took those cocksuckers down,” a man could be heard saying, articulating each profanity in a crisp staccato. “Fuck those guys. We’re No. 1.” The voice, Koppelman told me, belonged to Mat Ishbia, the C.E.O. of United Wholesale Mortgage and the majority owner of the Phoenix Suns. He was allegedly speaking about his closest industry rival, Rocket Mortgage. Hunterbrook was about to publish an investigation alleging that Ishbia’s company had aggressively pressured independent mortgage brokers to send business to U.W.M., potentially saddling home buyers with hundreds of millions of dollars more in closing costs. But what made this first foray into investigative journalism notable had already occurred: in advance of the story’s publication, Hunterbrook Media’s conjoined twin, Hunterbrook Capital, a hedge fund, had shorted U.W.M. stock and gone long on Rocket Mortgage.
sequenceDiagram
Alice ->> Bob: Hello Bob, how are you?
Bob-->>John: How about you John?
Bob--x Alice: I am good thanks!
Bob-x John: I am good thanks!
Note right of John: Bob thinks a long<br/>long time, so long<br/>that the text does<br/>not fit on a row.
Bob-->Alice: Checking with John...
Alice->John: Yes... John, how are you?